Spring is right around the corner, and a lot of folks are beginning to think about fishing, but one group in particular is a little ahead of the game, they think about fishing all winter long. It's a group of local fly fishing enthusiasts known as the Raincountry Fly Fishers, and we attended one of their meetings to see a fly tying demonstration and learn a little about the club. Brad Elfers, one of its members, filled in a few details for us;

"Well the club's been around at least since the 1980's, and they meet in the fall, and in the winter and into early spring, and they meet twice a month. One meeting is generally a presentation, some kind of a topic of interest to local fly fishers, maybe it's where somebody took a trip, maybe it's some local tactics or techniques or things like that. And then the other meeting, the 2nd meeting of the month is generally a fly tying meeting where a new pattern will be presented, a new type of fly, a new type of fly tying material, and then we pass out materials and people can give it a try themselves.

Tonight we're tying with a new little head material that's right on the front here it's called a fish skull, and it replaces lead eyes on a fly and around here for Salmon or Trout a lot of time we want our flies to be weighted so they sink down and get down to where the fish are. And we're tying up patterns like this is a Salmon Fly, would be good for Silver's, would be good for Steelhead. We'll also probably tie up a different version with a different colored fish head here; this'll be more for saltwater silvers, if you're just casting off the beach or casting off of a kelp bed. And then we'll let people choose which one they want to try, this is a smaller one that's supposed to mimic a little salmon fry, a baby salmon, so this would be for sea run dolly's or sea run cutthroat. So we'll be using these fish skulls to tie these other patterns; that have been around a long time, but we've never actually put a fish skull on them before, so that's tonight's meeting."

The next time they meet, you ought to drop by, you might just get hooked.